So this was on my mind for a while now, I'm either too dumb to read or I didn't understand the plot. ( Yes for some reason I say impacts instead of explosions )

If I remember correctly, first impact was just Lilith landing on earth and accidentally creating the moon right ? Second impact was the contact experiment with Adam, where Lilith's DNA (apparently a normal human) came in contact with Adam's DNA.

And when an angel reaches Lilith the entire human race would be wiped out, if they however reach Adam, angels would dominate the earth. I got all that.

So my question is if a normal human being with just a little bit of Lilith's DNA could cause such a disaster, HOW and WHY could Gendo merge his hand with Adam's body ? Shouldn't that have caused another impact ? Am I missing something ? Also If any human being would touch Kaworu wouldn't occur another impact aswell ? Why was there no impact when unit 1 was impaled by Sachiel's energy thingy (first episode NGE )? So many occasions where Adam's DNA came in contact with Lilith's DNA but nothing ever happens. Can anyone explain to me why that is ?

It's not just "Adam-being touching Lilith-being." The resulting fusion needs to have enough power to effect everything on a planet-wide scale, whichrequires a member of the contact to be a fully realized Seed of Life; Adam, Lilith, or both.

In Gendo's case, for example, Adam is an embryo unable to use its terraforming powers.

Also, the will of the souls involved, matters; the First Impact was Lilith landing on the planet like a meteorite and just kind of devastating the place pretty much on accident. The Second Impact was Adam being woken up, and it decided to just wipe the planet and fill it with Angels; the injection of human DNA made it unable to finish its task when it exploded from instability.

The Third Impact is the full revival and fusion of Adam and Lilith's bodies and souls, and then basically asking it to grant a wish.

J_Faulkner, be warned that some of your statements could be construed as ad hominem attacks. -- Priceless, eternal irony

Lilith's arrival on Earth creating the moon I believe comes from the Confidential Information files or related material. This is based on an actual scientific theory that Earth as we know it and its moon were created by the collision of two planetoids.

Second Impact being a result of Adam waking up is pieced together from what flashbacks we get and the understanding the CI gave us of Adam and Lilith's relationship. The exact connection between the DNA infusion contact experiment and Adam exploding is ambiguous, though the presence of shoulder pylons on Adam suggests that's not all the Katsuragi Expedition Team did.

Third Impact being a wish comes from the way it's all presented, with Yui straight up asking Shinji what he wants. Why this one worked this way I don't know, but it's likely because of Rei wanting it to.

The series doesn't make entirely clear if the Angels even CAN Tribute an impact by fusing with Lilith since there's no precedent to work from, but given almost all her soul had been removed I doubt she could, and we don't know enough about the Angels' minds to know how they could influence it.

ACGT-Samael wrote:Lilith's arrival on Earth creating the moon I believe comes from the Confidential Information files or related material. This is based on an actual scientific theory that Earth as we know it and its moon were created by the collision of two planetoids.

You can kinda infer a relation to one of the Seeds from the White Moon dating back to the same time as the event and being clearly artificial but Lilith being the culprit wasn't revealed until the CI.

Ah, I missed that previously, and I imagine I'm not alone in that regard. Though it now occurs to me Lilith's Black Moon caused an impact strong enough to form a celestial body but Adam's White Moon did not.

The part about it being based on a real scientific theory is true though. Not sure how popular the theory is but it got enough traction to be worth mentioning to the public.

The Giant Impact stuff is from the show, though it's kind of obfuscatory and messy.

- Rei associated with the moon repeatedly. - Lilith's mask is pocked with craters.- episode 7: Textbook page that's mostly about Second Impact mentions creation of the moon via giant impactor.- episode 21': subterranean scan of White Moon says "possibly created at time of Giant Impact". (This seems to be directly contradicted by "surface structure clearly artificial" -- how could it be produced by a planetary cataclysm if it was clearly built by someone? -- so I'm not sure what exactly they're trying to communicate here. Only thing I can think of is that First Impact would have liquified the entire crust and this could have altered the composition of the White Moon's surface enough to affect dating. But if they wanted to be straightforward, "possibly predates time of First Impact" would have made more sense, right...?)- episode 24': Lilin are "false successors from Black Moon" while Angels are "true successors from White Moon".

At about the exact time that Adam starts glowing like a lightbulb (announced with the euphemism "surface luminescence has exceeded expectations"), we're told that the donor's DNA (which had "dived" into Adam) had already "physically fused". So there's that part. The glowing is presumably a result of Adam's S2 being fired up in anticipation of turning Lilith's work into goo and terraforming Earth and all that jazz. Adam continues to glow, Adam blows up the base, and then Adam herself blows up. There is a connection between the experiment and the blowing up at least in that the experiment implicitly set off the whole chain of events.

I'm pretty sure the contact experiment involved some kind of weird ATF manipulation (because how else do you explain DNA diving and merging into someone as a result of touching them?), and as a result it ended up being not just physical in nature. That is, spiritual contact occurred, and this is what really woke Adam up. (I imagine the donor's psyche being an Impact trigger, similar to what Gendo attempted with Rei and how Shinji was used for Third Impact. One of our own kind telling Adam to kill us all is quite tantalizing...) About what caused the S2 to go out of control, I'm not entirely sure. The Katsuragi Team made modifications to Adam and were seemingly trying to use these in an attempt to stop her, and the Spear was also employed at some point. Between human error and the Spear doing whatever the plot requires of it, there probably exists SOME kind of explanation.

The series doesn't make entirely clear if the Angels even CAN Tribute an impact by fusing with Lilith since there's no precedent to work from, but given almost all her soul had been removed I doubt she could, and we don't know enough about the Angels' minds to know how they could influence it.

I've never been entirely sure what to think about this. Seele would probably know the truth of the matter, and they've set things up so that Nerv destroys Lilith if an Angel gets too close to making contact. Given Lilith is a valuable asset to Seele, it doesn't make much sense to destroy that asset as a result of circumstances that would pose no actual risk.

Reichu wrote:The Giant Impact stuff is from the show, though it's kind of obfuscatory and messy.

- Rei associated with the moon repeatedly. - Lilith's mask is pocked with craters.- episode 7: Textbook page that's mostly about Second Impact mentions creation of the moon via giant impactor.- episode 21': subterranean scan of White Moon says "possibly created at time of Giant Impact". (This seems to be directly contradicted by "surface structure clearly artificial" -- how could it be produced by a planetary cataclysm if it was clearly built by someone? -- so I'm not sure what exactly they're trying to communicate here. Only thing I can think of is that First Impact would have liquified the entire crust and this could have altered the composition of the White Moon's surface enough to affect dating. But if they wanted to be straightforward, "possibly predates time of First Impact" would have made more sense, right...?)- episode 24': Lilin are "false successors from Black Moon" while Angels are "true successors from White Moon".

It's easy to forget now, but we didn't even find out the Stay Puft Giant in Gendo's basement was Lilith until Kaworu found her. Up until then we believed it was Adam, as Kaji had told Misato (which is another can of worms since we don't know what he actually knew about that), and whole false/true successors deal didn't come along until the Director's Cut. For a long time we had no context for Rei's association with the moon.

As for the White Moon, I guess you could assume the transport vessels were coated in a massive amount of rock, since otherwise their forming the moon makes 00 sense, though that invites the question "Why would you cover a transport vessel in a planetoid's worth of rock?"

Reichu wrote:At about the exact time that Adam starts glowing like a lightbulb (announced with the euphemism "surface luminescence has exceeded expectations"), we're told that the donor's DNA (which had "dived" into Adam) had already "physically fused". So there's that part. The glowing is presumably a result of Adam's S2 being fired up in anticipation of turning Lilith's work into goo and terraforming Earth and all that jazz. Adam continues to glow, Adam blows up the base, and then Adam herself blows up. There is a connection between the experiment and the blowing up at least in that the experiment implicitly set off the whole chain of events.

I'm pretty sure the contact experiment involved some kind of weird ATF manipulation (because how else do you explain DNA diving and merging into someone as a result of touching them?), and as a result it ended up being not just physical in nature. That is, spiritual contact occurred, and this is what really woke Adam up. About what caused the S2 to go out of control, I'm not entirely sure. The Katsuragi Team made modifications to Adam and were seemingly trying to use these in an attempt to stop her, and the Spear was also employed at some point. Between human error and the Spear doing whatever the plot requires of it, there probably exists SOME kind of explanation.

The DNA Diving deal seems to be another case of the production team using real world terms in ways that don't line up with real life, like their seeming non-understanding of what a Hayflick Limit or a Pribnow Box are. We don't have enough context to say what exactly "DNA diving" actually means since its conveyed by voiceover offscreen, but I tended to assume it involved injecting Adam with human genetic material, rather than being like what Yui and Kyoko later did with the Evas. Either way, my point was more "it's not clear how we got from point a to point b".

Reichu wrote:I've never been entirely sure what to think about this. Seele would probably know the truth of the matter, and they've set things up so that Nerv destroys Lilith if an Angel gets too close to making contact. Given Lilith is a valuable asset to Seele, it doesn't make much sense to destroy that asset as a result of circumstances that would pose no actual risk.

I've always been confused by this, largely due to the lack of explanation of exactly what the Dead Sea Scrolls say and how they know about any of the Angels and such when Adam being sealed wasn't part of the original plan.

ACGT-Samael wrote:We don't have enough context to say what exactly "DNA diving" actually means since its conveyed by voiceover offscreen, but I tended to assume it involved injecting Adam with human genetic material, rather than being like what Yui and Kyoko later did with the Evas.

The way "DNA that dived into Adam" is worded uses the actual English word "dive", and it's the DNA itself that's doing the "diving". It's not passive, it's not being made to do it by an outside force, it's just doing it -- which rules out the "injection" interpretation. The only other time "dive" is used in Eva is in the context of Yui's contact experiment (she's wearing a "dive suit" rather than a plugsuit). This is probably an intentional repetition.

The only reason to call the procedure with Adam the same thing as that with the Evas is if there is some element of commonality -- something to be gained by drawing the comparison. A simple DNA injection has nothing to do, at all, with what Yui and Kyoko did. A live human subject doing weird metaphysical stuff with a god, though? Now we're talking.

ACGT-Samael wrote:Ah, I missed that previously, and I imagine I'm not alone in that regard. Though it now occurs to me Lilith's Black Moon caused an impact strong enough to form a celestial body but Adam's White Moon did not.

Notice that Lilith's arrival is described as the First Impact, and not Adam's. Adam's White Moon didn't crash land the way that Lilith's Black Moon did because Adam and the Angels were originally intended to inherit the Earth, whereas Lilith usurped it from them when she crash landed. I assume it was due to the volatile nature of Lilith's crash landing that her spear was destroyed, and so Adam's spear reacted by putting Adam to sleep instead. It should also be noted that all the Impacts described events that attempt to convert the world from supporting one type of life to another; with Adam's arrival, the planet was a blank slate and no Impact was necessary.

Sachi wrote:Notice that Lilith's arrival is described as the First Impact, and not Adam's. Adam's White Moon didn't crash land the way that Lilith's Black Moon did because Adam and the Angels were originally intended to inherit the Earth, whereas Lilith usurped it from them when she crash landed. I assume it was due to the volatile nature of Lilith's crash landing that her spear was destroyed, and so Adam's spear reacted by putting Adam to sleep instead. It should also be noted that all the Impacts described events that attempt to convert the world from supporting one type of life to another; with Adam's arrival, the planet was a blank slate and no Impact was necessary.

Also in the cover-up story, the Second Impact is a proper impact event where micrometeorites near the speed of light struck Antarctica. It could be that SEELE borrows the name to refer to the Katsuragi Expedition incident so that it will not arouse suspicion in the public. And the same notation is kept for the First Impact and Third Impact.

Reichu wrote:The way "DNA that dived into Adam" is worded uses the actual English word "dive", and it's the DNA itself that's doing the "diving". It's not passive, it's not being made to do it by an outside force, it's just doing it -- which rules out the "injection" interpretation. The only other time "dive" is used in Eva is in the context of Yui's contact experiment (she's wearing a "dive suit" rather than a plugsuit). This is probably an intentional repetition.

For the record, I'm very familiar with the way the Japanese language works, and I also know full well how that line was phrased in Japanese. Thing is, the idea of DNA actively diving doesn't make a whole lot of sense since, y'know, it's a protein chain and not a sentient being unto itself. If we're dealing with a human being, then they're essentially referring to a living being as nothing more than genetic material, which seems really callous and a bit colder than what we've seen of Doctor Katsuragi.

Reichu wrote:The only reason to call the procedure with Adam the same thing as that with the Evas is if there is some element of commonality -- something to be gained by drawing the comparison. A simple DNA injection has nothing to do, at all, with what Yui and Kyoko did. A live human subject doing weird metaphysical stuff with a god, though? Now we're talking.

While that does make good logical sense, even ouR Wiki notes that the experiment with Adam seems on some level at least slightly different than what Yui and Kyoko did.

But of course this is somewhat of a tangent from the thread topic.

Sachi wrote:Notice that Lilith's arrival is described as the First Impact, and not Adam's. Adam's White Moon didn't crash land the way that Lilith's Black Moon did because Adam and the Angels were originally intended to inherit the Earth, whereas Lilith usurped it from them when she crash landed. I assume it was due to the volatile nature of Lilith's crash landing that her spear was destroyed, and so Adam's spear reacted by putting Adam to sleep instead. It should also be noted that all the Impacts described events that attempt to convert the world from supporting one type of life to another; with Adam's arrival, the planet was a blank slate and no Impact was necessary.

Lilith's arrival is called an impact because it literally was one. It violently collided with the Earth with enough force to shatter a Spear of Longinus and eject debris into space. Nowhere is it implied Adam's own arrival was so dramatic. Second Impact was called as such because of its cover story (which admittedly falls apart under any scrutiny because physics), and Third Impact is just called that because ah hell, we called the first two Impacts, why change the terminology for the last one.

Three is a number with great symbolic significance, especially in Christianity and the various psychoanalytic theories out there. The Holy Trinity and more generally the triad itself appears all over the place in NGE, perhaps most noticeably in the case of many of them during EOE. The three Magi being the three aspects of Naoko Akagi as a human being, Adam+Lilith+GNR, the three Impacts, GNR+Unit-01 w/S2 Engine and Shinji+Lance of Longinus, etc. Three is one of quite a few numbers representing a sense of completeness or wholeness in something, but it is special in its relationship with God's nature (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost/Spirit) and, at least with Freud, the three aspects that form the self (Id, Ego, Superego).

Each of the Impacts has something in common; namely, the Lance of Longinus winds up impaling, fusing, or otherwise interacting with one or more of the Seeds of Life and/or their "direct offspring". In the case of the First and Second Impacts, the Lance of Longinus winds up being used on Adam both times. During Third Impact, however, the Lance of Longinus fuses with Unit-01 while it is in possession of an S2 engine and its pilot, becoming the Tree of Life and also being temporarily absorbed/fused with GNR. It all seems to have to do with different levels of transcendence, death, and rebirth... and not just of any one form of life in particular: the individual, mankind, the Seeds of Life/Gods, etc.

It's best to think of it, in my opinion, as symbolism that describes to us, through narrative (because we seem to enjoy, understand, and learn things best through story in one form of another given how long its been a practice for us), phenomena taking place in the psyche regarding the long and arduous processes of understanding, progress, and growth of the self, along with human beings as a community, society, our culture, and the ourselves as an entire collective. The Third Impact is merely a marked, specific point in that cyclical process in which Death, Rebirth, and Transcendence all take place and allow us to outgrow and overcome our old ways of being that were succumbing to decay and death. We shed our old skins, now lifeless containers of old whose image still resembles our own, and become reborn anew from the ashes of our dead bodies like a phoenix, transcending the ever persisting forces responsible for our decay, suffering, and death to begin with.

It should go without saying that dies, is reborn, and transcends is highly symbolic and depends entirely on the person interpreting their meaning and both the perspective they view them from and the context in which they consider them. The cycle itself can be observed repeating all throughout the series and on various levels; identifying where all it is occurring is simply a matter of observation and contemplation. In places it is more obvious and literal, like with the Impacts, and in others, more subtle. Similarly, that cycle is occurring all the time in everybody. Every time you update your beliefs, every time you adopt knew knowledge and let go of the old, and every time you feel an experience has changed you as a person, you have indeed just experienced the cycle of the death of your old self, the rebirth of your new self into the present, and the transcendence of all that the old self was and represents.

Sleeptight wrote:So my question is if a normal human being with just a little bit of Lilith's DNA could cause such a disaster, HOW and WHY could Gendo merge his hand with Adam's body ? Shouldn't that have caused another impact ? Am I missing something ? Also If any human being would touch Kaworu wouldn't occur another impact aswell ? Why was there no impact when unit 1 was impaled by Sachiel's energy thingy (first episode NGE )? So many occasions where Adam's DNA came in contact with Lilith's DNA but nothing ever happens. Can anyone explain to me why that is ?

I think the lack of another Impact when Gendo fused with Adam was because Adam was in an embryonic state after the events of Second Impact, but that does cause me to realize something- Gendo becomes even more cold and distant after fusion with Adam. Whereas before he ran to Rei's ejected Entry Plug and openly (as openly as he could) spoke to his son when visiting Yui's grave, he pretty much secludes himself in his office or Terminal Dogma after fusing with Adam. After Rei takes his hand in Episode 25^1, he immediately becomes much more emotional and vulnerable, calling desperately to Rei to return to him, speaking to the spirits of Yui, Lilith, and Adam about why he did what he did, and asking for death at the hands of Shinji in Unit 01, along with forgiveness from him.All this makes me think that it was Adam who had control over Gendo, instead of the other way around, sort of a parasitic relationship.

I've reached a point where I just generally don't give a fuck anymore. In a good way.

AdamMalkobitch wrote:I think the lack of another Impact when Gendo fused with Adam was because Adam was in an embryonic state after the events of Second Impact, but that does cause me to realize something- Gendo becomes even more cold and distant after fusion with Adam. Whereas before he ran to Rei's ejected Entry Plug and openly (as openly as he could) spoke to his son when visiting Yui's grave, he pretty much secludes himself in his office or Terminal Dogma after fusing with Adam. After Rei takes his hand in Episode 25^1, he immediately becomes much more emotional and vulnerable, calling desperately to Rei to return to him, speaking to the spirits of Yui, Lilith, and Adam about why he did what he did, and asking for death at the hands of Shinji in Unit 01, along with forgiveness from him.All this makes me think that it was Adam who had control over Gendo, instead of the other way around, sort of a parasitic relationship.

That's actually a really neat observation I hadn't noticed before, though I don't think it's accurate to say Adam was controlling him since he's very clearly working towards his own ends. It's possible Adam influenced him slightly, but it wasn't full control.

Also, Adam didn't cause an impact there because its soul had been removed from its body and resided in Kaworu. What may be happening is Gendo's soul was thus being shared between two beings, and we've seen what Rei is like from only having part of a soul. At some point Adam's soul was returned to it, though, since Kaworu was part of the Lilith that appeared to Shinji.

Though that makes me wonder- Kaworu says he could fuse with an Eva not yet imbued with a soul, and we never see this, but would doing so trigger an Impact? A clone of Adam imbued with the soul of the original would basically be a new Adam.

Adam's Embryo lacks a soul when Gendo fuses it to his hand, presumably even after Kaworu's death. It's a mystery as to where Adam/Kaworu's soul, or indeed, any soul goes after death in the series, but we do at least have one lead to go off of: LCL. Both Shinji, Yui, and in EOE, the whole of humanity's souls being absorbed in LCL, along with the disintegration of their physical bodies, provide us with a somewhat plausible explanation for the location of Kaworu's soul. Namely, the pool of LCL at the foot of Lilith's crucified body.

How? From Kaworu's head landing in it, although guessing at an explanation with any more depth than that is kind of pointless--you kind of just have to accept and go along with the idea if you want there to be any real plausible explanation at all. In any case, IIRC it's actually ambiguous as to whether or not the Lance of Longinus was removed from Adam for the Contact Experiment that resulted in 2nd Impact or not, and whether or not it impaling a Seed of Life would prevent an impact from occurring if contact is made. Thankfully, we don't necessarily have to guess because Lilith's soul isn't present in Her physical body as the Seed of Life when Kaworu/Adam's soul winds up in the pool of LCL at Her feet, which would likely be sufficient enough to prevent an impact from occurring. Gendo fusing Adam's soulless embryo to his hand not causing an impact itself is suggestive of the same thing and serves as corroborating evidence for that hypothesis.

I really don't know what Kaworu fusing with one of the EVAs that are clones of his Adam body would do. I feel like it might create a sizeable anti-AT Field that more or less creates a really big explosion (like we see from the EVAs and Angels themselves when self-destructing, for example), but nothing like what the forbidden fusion of Adam and Lilith or the contact of a being possessing the Fruit of Knowledge and the Fruit of Life (given one is a Seed of Life) would... aka planet-wide.

StrokeMeGoat wrote:Adam's Embryo lacks a soul when Gendo fuses it to his hand, presumably even after Kaworu's death. It's a mystery as to where Adam/Kaworu's soul, or indeed, any soul goes after death in the series, but we do at least have one lead to go off of: LCL. Both Shinji, Yui, and in EOE, the whole of humanity's souls being absorbed in LCL, along with the disintegration of their physical bodies, provide us with a somewhat plausible explanation for the location of Kaworu's soul. Namely, the pool of LCL at the foot of Lilith's crucified body.

I never thought of that. I always thought the red wispy things that flee from the body when it's reverted to LCL (easiest seen with Keel in EoE) were souls, and LCL was just a bunch of soulless primordial goop. You see a bunch of red wispy bits swirling the Black Moon, raising from Earth, and going into Lilith's palms during Third Impact, and you see them freed when her body falls apart. To me, the ocean was red at the end because it was both LCL and Souls together, essentially still Instumentality, but without Lilith.

I've reached a point where I just generally don't give a fuck anymore. In a good way.

AdamMalkobitch wrote:I never thought of that. I always thought the red wispy things that flee from the body when it's reverted to LCL (easiest seen with Keel in EoE) were souls, and LCL was just a bunch of soulless primordial goop. You see a bunch of red wispy bits swirling the Black Moon, raising from Earth, and going into Lilith's palms during Third Impact, and you see them freed when her body falls apart. To me, the ocean was red at the end because it was both LCL and Souls together, essentially still Instumentality, but without Lilith.

Oh, I'm pretty sure those are meant to represent the souls--I'm fairly certain you're right about that. I feel it's been pretty adequately demonstrated with at least Shinji and Yui, though, that LCL is capable of containing souls. It doesn't have to contain any souls, but it can

At the end, it's said humans can regain their physical bodies based on how they imagine themselves within their hearts after all. The heart itself is a pretty multifaceted concept in Japan when not referring to the physical organ, meaning some amalgamation of soul, mind, and the emotions. Anyway, everybody's bodies turned to LCL, their souls return to the Dark Moon and GNR, and then fill and are contained in the Sea of LCL. What leads me to believe this is Rei stating that the Sea of LCL is the world that Shinji wished for; one where all the flaws and inadequacies of humanity when separated fill each other in, and they become an ambiguous super-entity where they as individuals don't possess forms, meaning that one cannot tell where one ends and others begin. The only reason they don't all start becoming human and get their bodies again is because GNR is likely maintaining its anti-AT Field to prevent that from happening.

If the AT Field represents the light of their soul giving shape, or an image to their physical bodies, as Kaworu tells Shinji in ep. 24, and their bodies initially came from and can dissolve within or into LCL as the primordial soup, I feel it stands to reason that the soul (and therefore, AT Field) is being contained within the LCL, and the LCL is merely reacting to the soul's presence and its owners will. LCL is still just lifeless goop on its own, but the introduction of the soul is capable of changing its form and prevents two beings made of LCL and shaped by their souls from simply merging together.

Well, it could simply be because three is a very powerful number in Christianity, which the show is full of symbolism for. It could just be an oblique reference to the Holy Trinity.

As for why the Gendo/Adam hybrid didn't cause an impact, Gendo's A.T. Field isn't nearly strong enough to create the world ending effects an Angel or Evangelion can, it can't manifest, it's just there. And I agree with AdamMalkobitch about Adam controlling Gendo, his extreme change in disposition before and after absorbing the thing lends some credence to the theory.

Voted in college to be Most likely to Take Over the World, how to do that however, will require at leastFour Evangelions. Thanks for the idea Misato-san!"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Said at the beginning of the nuclear age by J. Robert Oppenheimer."That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Words of Wisdom from German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.